This Father’s Day marks my 20th year without mine.  It’s hard to believe two decades have passed since I last saw him and heard his voice. Still, I was blessed to have him in my life for 41 years, and with the realization that not everyone is that fortunate, I don’t take those decades with my dad for granted nor the many wonderful memories I have of him. 

For thirty years, he was a high school business teacher, and in the summertime, in addition to tending his yard and garden, he helped his own dad build houses. For a while, he raised pine trees, and when I was a youngster, he grew small patches of burley tobacco to earn money to buy us Christmas presents.

Daddy loved sports, coached Little League, and enjoyed watching baseball, basketball, and football, both live and on television. Although I was very young when he was actively playing ball himself, I know he was a good athlete in his own right and a good shortstop in particular. 

Daddy was also creative and artistic. He could draw and enjoyed making various items in his woodworking shop. He could even tole paint and once crocheted an entire afghan. 

And he was funny. He could “spin a yarn” and entertain us with funny faces and imitations of people he knew from his childhood. He could wiggle one ear at a time. He used Consort men’s hairspray, and we laughed when he accidentally bought himself a can of Afro Sheen. 

He was a voracious reader of westerns, particularly Louis L’Amour novels. He enjoyed history and country music. As a kid, he sang in a gospel quartet with his uncle and cousins, and as an adult, he liked to travel with my mother and their friends to hear live music. He aspired, albeit unsuccessfully, to play the banjo.

Daddy liked country cooking and could make a meal on cornbread and milk. He enjoyed country ham and biscuits and gravy, preferred his fried potatoes sliced rather than cubed, and sometimes wanted cracklings in his cornbread. He loved old timey “stack cake” from his boyhood onward. On top of these “health foods,” he smoked a lot of cigarettes through the years – Kent Menthol 100s, as I recall.

Years ago, the semi-circle road we lived on was highly popular with Trick or Treaters. Prior to the first ring of our doorbell, Daddy would be complaining about the impending influx, but deep down, he loved it and handed out most of the candy himself. And with the first appearance of some cute witch or princess, monster or superhero, he was calling us to the door to see them.

At Christmas time, he signed, addressed, stamped, and mailed dozens of Christmas cards. And he was a master gift-wrapper. I can still see him at the kitchen table with scissors, Scotch tape, and rolls of wrapping paper, perfectly creasing each folded edge. Throughout the winter, he would often attach a blade to whatever “machine” (Cub Cadet, Ford, or Kubota) he had throughout the years and plow neighbors’ driveways as well as our own.

Daddy owned several vehicles through the years, and in the late 80s and early 90s, he went through a conversion van phase. He had local artists paint cardinals and dogwood flowers (our state bird and flower) on the rear, spare wheel covers. And so, we traveled in comfort and style, all the while exhibiting our North Carolina pride.

He was a good homework helper, particularly with math problems, and he supported me and my brother and sister in our endeavors, whether in our studies or our individual hobbies and interests. I recall when he encouraged me to enter a local radio contest that required entrants to write about what Thanksgiving meant to them. He told me I wrote well (which still encourages me to this day), so I entered…and I won.

Daddy was not a perfect man by any means. He had moments (as we all do) when his faults and imperfections were made manifest and spotlighted, but he loved his family and was a hard worker and a good provider. We were not wealthy people, but we had a good life. We never went without the things we needed, and we were rich in the things that mattered most. 

So, on this annual commemorative day, twenty years after his earthly departure, I remain thankful for the role my father played in my upbringing and how it helped shaped the trajectory of my life and my character. I am also thankful that I still retain these memories and more of him. May it ever be so.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. 

I love and miss you.